English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Debate between Lord Pack and Baroness Pidgeon

Committee stage
Monday 2nd February 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Pack (LD)]

The answer is largely yes, although the provisions under the Highways Act get into the use of adjoining land and the circumstances in which adjoining land might be used, particularly for bypasses related to cattle grids. However, the intent of the amendment is absolutely to tease out where the Government are on cattle grids on highways.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, there are a number of amendments in this group, and I shall speak to just a few of them. The last two speakers have outlined that if this Bill is truly about devolution, it should be empowering local authorities to make decisions for their area without having to apply to Whitehall. From Amendment 236 from my noble friend Lord Pack about the decision to install a cattle grid in an area to the speeches we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, about workplace parking levies or applying for a Transport and Works Act order, what is the best level for this? In many ways, these are small amendments, but they go to the heart of the Bill. Is this about genuine devolution and empowerment, or is it a little bit of decentralisation from Whitehall but still with the reins attached? That was one of the criticisms we made at Second Reading.

The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, has had to leave, but I shall speak on his behalf on Amendments 120D and 120E. He apologises to noble Lords for not having taken part before, due to working on other Bills at the same time that have been clashing. Noble Lords will remember the Bus Services (No. 2) Bill, now the Bus Services Act. These amendments were tabled by the noble Lord at that time, and we were told:

“The Government will look to utilise these principles in their delivery of the forthcoming road safety strategy. This strategy will lay the foundation for government leadership while providing flexibility for local authorities to determine the most appropriate approach for their local circumstances”.—[Official Report, 13/10/25; col. 90.]


However, according to the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, the long-awaited road safety strategy is rather coy on bus safety, mentioning the Act and what TfL is doing and then saying:

“Safety measures could then be specified as part of franchising contracts”.


The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, is concerned that it seems as though local authorities might move forward in this safety area in some way only if they are minded to do so, whereas, in London, we see that TfL has the Vision Zero strategy, which aims to eliminate all deaths and serious injuries from the transport network by 2041 and to have no one killed on or by a bus by 2030. Surely these things should be baked into all future transport contracts nationwide. The noble Lord is right to flag up this issue. The road safety strategy is an excellent document in so many areas, but in this area of bus safety it has fallen short of what we all hoped for from the bus services Bill. I hope that the Minister can address our points about devolution and bus safety, as well as about making sure that we are tackling these issues.